


An Image of the Splendour of the Kings of Men

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: The Big Short [4]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Big short, it's christmas time so apparently my muse is like 'let's cry'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 11:57:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12983574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: "There will be no comfort for you, no comfort to ease the pain of his passing. He will come to death, an image of the splendour of the kings of men, in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. But you, you will linger on in darkness and in doubt, as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Here you will dwell, bound to your grief under the fading trees, until all the world is changed, and the long years of your life are utterly spent."





	An Image of the Splendour of the Kings of Men

**Author's Note:**

> Title and Summary are from LotR, I'm pretty sure it's only in the movie, but I haven't read the book since moved like 4(5?) years ago, so... *shrug*, either way, I don't own it.
> 
> This was written for the Big Short prompt: Desperation

_Can I lay by your side?_  
_Next to you,_  
_And make sure you're alright._  
_I'll take care of you,_  
_I don't want to be here if I can't be with you tonight._  
_~Sam Smith, Lay Me Down_

* * *

“Can I lay by your side, next to you?” the words stumble their way out of his mouth, before he ever has a chance to stop them. His heart is frozen in his chest, like someone has reached out a cold hand and is holding his heart clenched tight between clawed fingers.

The reply is nothing but a whisper upon the wind, a message he can’t decipher. A cold breeze that whips his hair around his face in a frenzy. He supposes it’s answer enough, but no matter. His legs don’t have the strength to hold him tall any longer. The floor rushes up to meet him, and he greets it like a lover.

The stone beneath him is cold and unforgiving, like his heart, like him. He thinks it suits, he thinks it’s everything he deserves.

It’s everything he wants.

“You told me not to cry, but you underestimate how foolish I can be. How stupidly I can give my heart away.”

He wipes helplessly at the icy tears that slide down his face. His trembling hands, hands that have been steady and reliable for thousands of years. Hands that have been solid and stable through all the wars of elves and men, now they tremble, and quiver, and shake, and no one would put their life in those hands.

“It was thoughtless. _I_ was foolish.” He says, his voice catching on the words. Even his voice now, will fail him at the least provocation. “I should have walked away when I had the chance.” But he didn’t walk away, he walked closer, and he crawled closer, and he scrambled closer, and he did all that he could to latch himself so tightly that even now he can’t walk away, doesn’t know how.

Even now he can’t resist the urge to reach out, to try to touch, to connect, with that which he knows will not respond.

He reaches his trembling, quivering hand out, rests it against the cold, solid stone before him and sucks in a deep, shuddering breath.

“Can I lay by your side, next to you?” he asks again, the words tumbling over themselves to escape him.

The howl of the wind is his answer, as it gusts past him, whipping up his hair and his robes, and doing it’s best to blast him away. It is the only answer he has ever received to his question, no matter how many times he asks.

“I’m nothing, I’m nothing without you.” He whispers, reaching up to caress the exquisitely carved stone, it’s cold and ungiving under his touch, it is nothing like the real thing.

Cold stone could never truly replicate that which is- ** _was_** alive. Cold stone is harsh and unforgiving, for all that it can be shaped, crafted, hewn into form. It cannot hold the warmth, cannot hold the life, that all living beings can hold. Though the dwarves do an incredible job, an unmatched job, not even they can bring life to stone, that is a skill solely reserved for Illúvatar and Aulë alone. Long has it been since he has given thought to either.

“Can I lay by your side, next to you,” he asks once more, sucking in a breath and closing his eyes. “Bard?”

* * *

_Lay me down tonight._  
_Lay me by your side._  
_Lay me down tonight._  
_Lay me by your side._  
_Can I lay by your side?_  
_Next to you?_  
_~Sam ~~~~Smith, Lay Me Down_


End file.
